On The Pitiful ACC, and Technicalities

The first sentence of my last post is shamefully unclear. When I wrote "I didn't mean to leave this till now, but I might as well have," what I meant was "I forgot I was going to write about the Thursday game until half an hour before kickoff, but that has to do with the fact that neither this Thursday game nor the Saturday games this week are very exciting." And they're not. Nobody plays anybody. Except kind of in the ACC, where there are enough mediocre teams that half the conference is still in it, so it's almost impossible not to match some of them against each other. When College GameDay is broadcasting from unranked Boston College at #19 Florida State, and you can't really blame them, you know it's a bad week.

#16 North Carolina at Maryland. This is big because of tiebreakers. In one half of the ACC, Maryland is tied with Florida State and Wake Forest with two ACC losses. In the other half, UNC and Miami have two losses. But Maryland has beaten Wake, and UNC has beaten Miami. So the winner of this game controls their fate.

Another quick point I'd like to make about the ACC. One of my friends, a Virginia fan, and I had a serious discussion about whether winning the ACC title is even a good thing. Would you rather be a 20 point underdog in the Orange Bowl or drop to one you might actually win? We were on the verge of deciding it might be best to lose the ACC Championship Game or something until he said something like, "Who am I kidding? We'd get crushed in a reasonable bowl anyway." So the ACC may end up sending a team that wouldn't like their chances against someone like the SEC #5. Thank God it's finally basketball season.

#11 Ohio State at Illinois. I could have put another game here, but there's no unequivocally better one, and this gives me a chance to talk about a fun BCS technicality. Conventional wisdom is that only one small conference team has a chance of making the BCS, because no matter how worthy a second team is, they'll never be a draw on par with a comparable major conference team. But the BCS at-large teams must come from the Top 14, and no conference can send more than two teams.

This is currently Alabama, Texas Tech, Texas, Florida, Oklahoma, USC, Utah, Penn State, Boise State, Georgia, Ohio State, Missouri, Oklahoma State and Ball State. Assuming two of the four at large will come from the SEC and Big 12, the other two must be filled by some combination of Ohio State and small conference teams. The next five offer no help. There's Michigan State, who will drop if they lose to Penn State, North Carolina and Florida State, who will either lose and drop or win the ACC and be in automatically, and BYU and TCU, who are in the Mountain West.

So if Ohio State loses to Illinois or Michigan, the BCS may be forced to take two small conference teams. On the flip side, if they win out, they are almost guaranteed an at-large bid. So if you are a Boise State, Ball State, or Cinderella fan, you should root against the Buckeyes.

Predictions: North Carolina has lost to Virginia Tech when their QB got injured and the backup turned the game over, and to Virginia in overtime after giving up the tying score in the final minute. Maryland has lost to Middle Tennessee State, 31-10 to Virginia, and after being almost doubled up in yardage to Virginia Tech. I know who I'm taking. Illinois is dangerous, as one of those teams who should be much better than they are. But after losing last year, Ohio State can't take them lightly. Coupled with the Buckeyes' dismantling of Michigan State and Northwestern recently, it's hard to pick the upset. Besides, Ohio State-Michigan needs a good plot, and can the Wolverines knock Ohio State out of the BCS is a good one.

Picks: North Carolina (57/43), Ohio State (73/27)

LW: 81-51

Overall AdjWPct: 893-407, .687